What Will We Garden: The Search for Healthy Local Plants, Part 2

Reader Contribution by Cindy Murphy
Published on July 13, 2010
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Box-store or independent garden center? Yes, to be fair, I admit my opinions are biased. For the past ten years (or maybe eleven; time flies when you’re having fun), I’ve worked at a family-owned nursery and garden center that’s been in business for over fifty years. Naturally I would choose an independent garden center over a box-store.

There are some things that, when you look on the surface, box-stores have going for them. Price is often lower at the box-stores. Nationwide or regional chain stores buy such large quantities of plants that they are contracted from growers at a much lower price than a nursery or independent garden center buying only a couple of hundred. Often these box-store contracts are under scan-based payment terms. That means a store only pays for product that is sold. The result may be employees having little incentive to keep the plants healthy and looking good. We’ve all seen racks of annuals at box-store garden centers left outside to turn to mush in the frost, and shrubs frying out in the sun on the concrete. If they die, it doesn’t matter much to the store; if no one buys them, they don’t pay the grower for the loss.

Independent nurseries and garden centers have a more vested interest in their plants. Plants that are bought by garden centers often must be purchased at a higher price from the grower than some of the box stores even sell them. For the garden center to get its return, these plants must remain healthy and looking good – which means more care is taken to keep them that way. Nurseries have an even bigger stake. From seedling to saleable plant, years of manpower hours, irrigation costs, and valuable land are invested. These “home-grown” plants are often bigger and healthier – they have to be in order for the nursery to get its return on their investment and hard work.

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